Pre-order bonuses are almost always considered to be pretty lacking as retailers try to coerce more people to buy games from their stores by outputting the bare minimum. In most cases, you might get a pin or a small poster, but GameStop’s pre-order bonus for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a small piece of wood that likely won’t do much more than take up space on your wall.
This proudly denoted “GameStop exclusive” features the odd markings we have seen shown in much of Tears of the Kingdom to this point, with what may be a handprint from Link’s newly replaced arm. While this wooden plaque is not the worst thing we have ever seen, it really is a testament to how lacking pre-order bonuses are, especially considering the size of the item is likely only a little larger than the Nintendo Switch case of the game itself.
Related: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Collector’s Edition might hint at a new Switch OLED model
If you are attracted to what some people are describing as a “tiny Zelda-themed cutting board,” you will need to pre-order a physical version of Tears of the Kingdom from a GameStop store and go in on release day and pick it up before that store runs out of stock. Like other bonuses the retailer runs, these are only given to stores in a limited quantity and are handed out with the game itself.
With this Tears of the Kingdom pre-order bonus literally just being a scrap of wood that you will likely forget about before you reach home to start playing the game, we have high doubts that this will actually pull anyone away from pre-ordering the game from their favorite store. It shouldn’t stop anyone from shopping at their local GameStop, but this is really low-effort merchandising.
